HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARION!
A Zoom presentation celebrating Marion Davies — silent film actress, famed party hostess and the original Beach House resident — will be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday, January 31.
The celebration from the Annenberg Community Beach House, hosted by the Santa Monica Conservancy, will feature tales about Marion and her circle of celebrities and luminaries. Also, dance to music of the 1920s and ’30s. Kick off the celebration by mixing up Marion’s “Sunset at the Beach” mocktail (recipe included with registration).
This is a free event, but prior registration is required Register here.
Please note that registration closes on Saturday, January 30 at 3 p.m.
If you have any questions, please email Beach.House@smgov.net.
“Nisei Memories” on February 10
A virtual series in preservation of our historic cultures, the Santa Monica Mosaic, will offer an important and historic look into a sad part of our country’s history with “Nisei Memories” at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 10. The fully illustrated lecture and following Q&A session will take place via Zoom. The program is $10 for the public and free for members.Register here.
Dr. Dennis Ogawa, a professor of Japanese American studies at the University of Hawaii, was born at the Manzanar War Relocation Center in the Owens Valley and grew up in Santa Monica.
He will tell of his father’s determination to return his family to the city after more than three years of internment—no matter what the challenges might be. Learn of the Ogawas’ struggles—and fond memories, too—as they sought to assimilate back into Santa Monica life amid a postwar housing shortage and lingering mistrust by their fellow Americans.
Preceding Dr. Ogawa’s presentation will be an illustrated historic overview of the Japanese community in Santa Monica by Mosaic’s moderator and historian, Libby Motika (a former 20-year senior editor at the Palisadian-Post).
She will speak about the first Japanese immigrants in the early 1900s who established a thriving fishing village in Santa Monica Canyon, their expansion into other areas of local commerce, community pride and sociability, as evidenced by the midcentury Nikkei Hall, which still stands in the Pico District.